Microbe Hunters (1000 Books to Read)

This was so fascinating. I loved it. I learned about the first simple microscope by Anton Van Leeuwenhoek and the exploits of Pasteur and Walter Reed (yes, the military hospital is named after him). This is a great book! (Many animals die in the writing of this book, but their sacrifices have saved millions of people.) 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

Few books convey the romance of science—the intense excitement of close observation, the intuitive leaps that link phenomena, the disappointment of failed hypotheses, the triumphant clarity of successful experiment—better than this one. The enduring 1926 bestseller by bacteriologist-turned-writer Paul de Kruif is a colorful account of the careers and discoveries of the pioneers of the microscopic world. Presenting these scientific trailblazers as the “hunters,” “explorers,” and “fighters of death” that they truly were—including some “done to death by the immensely small assassins they were studying”—de Kruif infuses his profiles with an extra dose of drama that brings a page-turning pleasure to the real scientific history he imparts.